Galactic Serenade
by J u s t . E s c a p e
Summary: Winding stairs twisting and curving out, ship lifting off. We'll climb aboard. Destination and returning, you'll set the engine burning. The navigation making us scared, but we're okay as long as you're there... A Klaatu/Helen one-shot.


**Galactic Serenade**

Out on the street beneath the moonlight, watching the world pass me by, standing still with my hands trapped inside my pockets. I wonder if you'll make it home, or perhaps if you have died because of saving_ us_. Your face is a vivid image in my mind, photographically distinct. That last expression, motionless like iron. Yet, I could see it move, see it changing.

Desperation … Your dark eyes glowing chocolate-brown, bright like stardust.

You were standing tall, your body pushed forward, shadowing my fear. The rumbling of the apocalypse - the holocaust - the unfathomable paled-grey of the sky. You sacrificed yourself for _us_.

The immensity of the pain, the little nanites peeling into our skin, eating through our veins, swimming through our blood like poison in the sea, making us vulnerable to a slow death. My Jacob in a bitter slumber, falling slowly into a coma.

I asked you, begged you. I was…afraid. I was afraid you wouldn't -- couldn't.

You did.

You took fast hold of us, squeezing us, letting the nanites gravitate toward _you_. They swarmed viciously into your flesh like magnets to steal. I didn't want it to hurt you, but I was afraid. And the greater swarm followed suit, like a symphony, a march. You were in lead.

Your selfless act. Even after all you did, after all the damage…you did _this_ for _us_.

It was the last moment, the last moment from all that we had faced together. You left us in an instant.

It hurts.

I almost couldn't watch, but I did. You left in the Sphere, that holozoic of organic matter. I like to think that you wanted to look back at us, Jacob and I, one last time, just to get one final look.

I like to think that you may be alive, maybe sleeping peacefully somewhere in the celestial embedment of stars - those little twinkling lights that are so much more; gaseous masses in space that generate energy by thermonuclear reactions. I like to imagine that you'll be welcomed home - wherever that may be for you - without the fear of resentment, denial - all because of what you did for _us_.

Where are you now?

I guess I'll never know my friend. My friend, the alien.

Do you think of us? Would you bother yourself with the little memories, the kind that prick _my_ mind like cold little needles, or like a hammer against a door?

It couldn't be in your nature. I know what you are. I know -- I know you cannot share, hold -- you just don't -- don't work -- function that way. Am I selfish, Klaatu? Am I selfish to secretly wish you --- to secretly wish you did?

Oh God. Do I know what I'm saying? The thoughts they -- they flow through my mind like running music, like flowing water. I can't seem to halt it.

I don't want to.

Don't take this wrongly. I had a love - a love that no one - certainly not you - can ever replace. You must understand this. And forgive me, but I loved my husband; he cherished me, held me, kissed me. Yes, he would kiss me. These are things that you would never do … or would you?

Forget this fantasy. It's foolish. I blame my fascination, or rather, my infatuation with you for this curiosity. Like an illness it will pass - it must pass!

We're from two different worlds aren't we? Yes. You and I. We are.

My heart flutters, but not from drinking too much coffee. I haven't had coffee since -- since I don't remember, really.

It's you. It's that frightening reality. I can feel myself falling backwards, moving downward, deep into a black hole. It'll shred and rip me into nothing more than microscopic atoms, body matter, if I let it. That's why I have to keep myself from -- from feeling this way about _you_.

I'm fancying, imagining that you're traveling across the worlds, the universe, another place in time. Perhaps another dimension, an unorthodox sequence of time travel through the fourth chamber of a theorized visionary existence. I don't know Klaatu, I really don't; but I think you're out there. Somehow I just feel it.

Does this matter to you? Would it matter in your eyes if you were standing at my side, shadowing my world with your tall frame, your smoothly angled face, your pale skin, that dark hair that graces your appeal?

What if I knew what you _really _looked like? Would that turn me away? Would it haunt my dreams for all eternity? Are you what I might perceive as a monster?

I like to think that it wouldn't, because I want to like the inside - that man within. Yes. That man within, because whether you like it or not, that's what you'd be to me. That's what you are now, in my mind. A man - just from another world in time and space, that's all.

I want to release my soul. I don't want to be trapped, not by you.

Do you know, Klaatu? Do you know what you've done to me, what you're _doing_ to me? Do you?

You've made me see a deeper side, a side you kept hidden - something intricate. If you were here right now, if you could've stayed, I would've taught you how to open the shut-tight vortex of your hidden self. It's that part of you that I glimpsed in the blink of an eye, a part your kind has hidden for centuries. No wait, rewind that sentence, that presumption … they've forgotten, haven't they?

Cerebral abilities… Oh Klaatu, that's what you've done. Somehow your people expanded their brains, reaching a capacity that is far beyond our own. You've come to be a high level of intellectual beings, reaching an extraordinary efficiency, putting aside and avoiding emotional discomfort and instead contracting the strict usage of your -- of your psychological reasoning.

It's a marvel within itself. What a thrill it would be to observe your kind, study the thinking patterns of your brain. But I couldn't do it, even if you let me. I think that it would only sadden me, if not traumatize me.

Will mankind fall into your shoes someday? Will we become what you are, Klaatu? Is this question an inclination of high expectations for my own species?

Couldn't you use these cerebral abilities to speak back to me? Couldn't you send wave-signals to my mind and let me know that you're okay? Don't you know I need to know…_desperately_?

I worry for you, Klaatu. You must know this. You must know that it's true.

I'm never going to have the answer, am I? It's just not meant for me to know. And unlike me, you already know this…and like you've done before, you're protecting me in your silent way.

I want to -- I want to cry, or maybe laugh. I don't know what I want to do anymore. I've got a case of mixed emotions, Klaatu. And Jacob is about as bemused as me. He's in the den, sitting on the couch. I fixed him something to eat but I don't know if he's going to consume it; he's probably just sitting there … thinking … wondering … hell, maybe he's wishing.

I'm wasting away, aren't I? I'm doing what humans do when they're overwhelmed by a scientific conclusion, or rather, their own sense of wishful thinking. I believe I'm actually developing eroticism for -- for an extraterrestrial!

I'm trying to put this puzzle together. I'm trying to conceive the patterns of the iridescent colors of sentimental cravings that are flashing through my head at light-speed. Am I betraying my late husband in my own way?

I'm a fool aren't I?

What's wrong with me?

I think you've stolen my sanity, Klaatu. I think you've taken away who I once was. As of right now, I don't know who I am anymore. This woman I am reflecting on … this isn't the _Dr. Helen Benson_ I knew yesterday. Or is it?

Maybe -- maybe it's right. Maybe it's right to feel like this.

Would you catch me if you could when I fall, Klaatu? Because when I think of you and me, together with Jacob, everything else just seems … obsolete. Would you catch me, protect me, be my shoulder to lean on?

I could be your future, if you'd only come down for me. I could -- I could love you, if you'd believe - if you'd learn to love _me_.

We could be close enough to realize that it's not over. And it would almost be like before…when we weren't afraid.

I know you don't belong. You're an alien here. Quite literally. But Klaatu, I'm beginning to feel that same alienation from my own world. I feel like -- I think that there's more for me _out there_, beyond the stars, past this galaxy, through the milky ways …where you are.

Does that make sense? Can that be justified as the least bit reasonable? … I'm afraid it can't; but I don't care. I don't care if it makes sense, Klaatu.

I just want to be with you.

Do you know a place where we can live without fear? If you did, would you take us home, Jacob and I, a hundred light years?

In another galaxy, I could be your lover so easily. I'm all you need. The tip of time is waiting for us, so let me follow you to wherever. The three of us together.

Winding stairs, twisting and curving out, ship lifting off. We'll climb aboard. Destination and returning, you'll set the engine burning. The navigation making us scared, but we're okay as long as you're there.

Why can't it be?

Klaatu, what do _you_ see?

It's just a serenade of my mind, illusory, isn't it? I know you're not coming back, not really. But I had to dream it, I had to live it, if only for a brief moment in my entire life.

Could you see it too, Klaatu? I hope you did. I truly do.

If I could see you again, if just for an instant - a blink, a stir, a whirl in the part of my mind where the ability to form images and ideas, especially of things never seen or experienced directly, never touched, or never tried are endless - would you let me?

I'm not afraid, Klaatu. I'm not -- I'm not afraid. I -- I think I could actually love you and -- and Klaatu, I believe that somewhere down the road, if you came back, you could learn to love me too; you could also learn to love Jacob. I know it, Klaatu. I do. But you're not coming back, are you? You can't -- won't.

It was only a dream. Punctual gratification. A waft in time, right here in my mind.

I never even got the chance to say -- to say thank you. Or goodbye.

* * *

**A/N: **I had a few people asking me to write another Klaatu/Helen. So, I decided to give you all something that captured scientific amusement of a, well, scientist, who might have had the least bit of fascination for the alien Klaatu - in both a romantic and observatory way. Maybe it's…satisfying. I'm not so sure, but I had to try it. I hope that some of the phrases in here aren't too...difficult to understand. Just know that I have a deep interest for science and astronomy (the dimensions of space and time), and Helen is easy to capture because she reminds me a bit of myself...except she's a renowned scientist...I'm not. And special thanks to **Silvara** for helping me to better the summary:)


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